Havana, Cuba–The stress and frustration of watching the Mets has taken its toll on this guy. In a weak National League, where even the Cardinals are kind of vulnerable, the Mets’ brass can’t get it together to bring in a bat or two to buttress the young stud starting pitchers. The MLB trading deadline is now 10 days away, and the smart money says that Sandy Alderson will do exactly what he’s done at the trade deadline in each of his previous 4 seasons with the Mets. Absolutely nothing.
I’ve tried being a kinder, gentler FSA. But after watching Short Matt‘s favorite Bartolo Colon suffer an impacted bowel on the mound against the Cardinals last weekend, I can’t stand it anymore. Sunday’s 18 inning Mets-Cards game was shown to ISIS on tape delay yesterday and they set themselves on fire.
The Mets are not slumping. Hitters must first experience even a modicum of success before they can be seen as “in a slump.” Guys like Lucas Duda, Wilmer Flores (who it turns out can’t field-OR hit) Juan Lagares, and Kirk Niewenhuis are minor leaguers. That’s why they go months at a time hitting well below the Mendoza line. They’re not slumping. They just suck.
When your favorite team of 40+ years is losing in the torturous manner in which the Mets are, it affects you-even changes your personality. The agony of being a Met fan can’t help but carry over into every day interactions. One of my kids dropped a bottle of ketchup the other evening, and I blasted him for lack of focus. My wife came home from the grocery store without my Fluff, and I threatened to send her to Tidewater. My Mom, visiting from Florida, borrowed my car and promptly got caught going through a red light on one of those Camera lights that catches your plate number. When she walked back in, Carlos Torres was on the mound and I was burning. “I like Moms that don’t get caught, OK! How ’bout that? Losers get caught. Real Moms don’t get caught!” I did not apologize. Instead I did the Sunday morning shows and doubled down on my vitriol.
When the new Baseball Commissioner Toothless Rob Manfred took the helm at MLB last Spring, he was interviewed by bow-tied gnome Ken Rosenthal. The interview, which featured not a single follow up question for Manfred, was a puff piece as Rosenthal didn’t question anything that came out of the Commissioner’s gaping hole of a mouth. Manfred had the audacity without fear of being pressed on it to say… “I think at the point in time that it is their judgment that it is effective to increase their payroll, they’ll do that, and they will have the capacity to do it . . I have never had a question about the Mets’ capacity to spend if they decided it was in their baseball interest to spend money. I really don’t believe that’s an issue.” Wow.
https://youtu.be/B0DqGTVwkvg
Everyone it seems is looking out for Fred Wilpon-a bad guy bereft of morality. Sandy lies for him and he’s comfortable doing so. And why not? He’s getting 3 million bucks a year for a job with no expectations and no accountability to anyone. Bud Selig enabled Wilpon to continue his ownership of the team even after the shenanigans with Bernie Madoff. Rob Manfred has no issue at all with the Wilpons. Only the fans suffer. We’re the only ones who care. We want our baseball team back from these guys. The ones who stole it from us. In the meantime Sandy, go find us a goddamned bat! 
